Jane Stanford was 39 when she gave birth to the couple’s only child, Leland Stanford Jr. Devoted to the education of their precocious son, his parents subscribed to all his whims and often took him to Europe. When he died of typhoid fever in Florence, Italy, at age 15, his devastated father vowed to found a university in his honor at their Palo Alto estate.
The founding documents gave the Stanfords full authority over the operation of the university. Jane insisted that the school was co-educational, an unusual and progressive attitude. After several revered scholars rejected the presidency, the couple hired Jordan, an Indiana professor who had made a name for himself in ichthyology (the study of fish) and was also a strong believer in eugenics. When Leland Stanford died in 1893, his widow had to untangle his complicated finances. (The federal government sued the estate for $15 million and froze its assets, but ultimately lost the lawsuit.) She kept the university afloat during this time with her own money while trying to shape her identity.
For all her accomplishments, Jane Stanford in White’s portrayal is a remarkably obnoxious woman, mean to relatives and staff, controlling and cunning, easily influenced by advice she thought her late husband and son were trying to share. “Ghosts ran the university,” White writes. She used her money like a bat, fired faculty members whose opinions she didn’t like, and tried to inject religion into the curriculum. Although she is the main character of the story, White doesn’t make much of an effort to understand Stanford’s behavior, the dynamics of her marriage, or the drivers of her cruelty. Was she bitter about the loss? After decades of not being able to use her own power, did she now enjoy her ability to manipulate others? Has the sexism of her time colored how contemporaries characterized the actions of a woman who defied the wishes of patronizing men?
By the time White details all the people she has wronged by word or deed, the list of possible suspects for her murder is long, even by Agatha Christie’s standards. Jane Stanford had initially announced that she intended to fire President Jordan upon her return from Hawaii, but she never came home. Many people had a motive; but resources and opportunities narrow the field considerably.
It is a pleasure to see an author enjoying his material. Delving deep into the archives, White gleefully analyzes the conflicting testimonials, newspaper reports, Stanford documents, old city guides and memoirs written by the protagonists. As he notes, “Memoirs may appear to be built on the accumulation of actions, relationships, thoughts, and words over the course of a lifetime, but they are actually built from the elimination of anything that would complicate or falsify morals and meanings. the author wants to convey.”
In the final chapter, White discusses the evidence one last time and, along with his brother Stephen, who writes crime fiction, points the finger at the likely culprit. The conclusion is anticlimactic, as the signs have been pointing in this direction all along – though White comes up with the name of a plausible accomplice. Despite the catchy title, solving the murder isn’t really the point of this book. Instead, it’s an intriguing take on the sordid Gilded Age history of a respected and storied academic institution.
